Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Just wanted to say 'Hi' to everybody! I'm just settling in to a place in San Diego County and hope to soon be able to share stories and photos with you all, but first I probably need some advice. I've been on extended hikes every weekend for the last month or so and I've been completely skunked as far as snakes go. I'm not adventurous enough to actually turn things over, but I was hoping to at least see some slithering something.

As it was, I've got lots of photos of generic sunning lizards, so I'm still happy. I've been up the trail to Iron Mountain (counted 24 lizards all along the path) and up various trails in William Heise campground, and I'd like to see some day snakes before I get ambitious with overnight desert herping and such. If anyone has any techniques for daytime hilly chaparral herping I'd appreciate it. Thirty years ago in this area I lived here a few years and I used to see striped racers, gopher snakes and the occasional king just by walking in the canyons behind housing developments. Is that still possible in SoCal?

Thanks everybody. Looking forward to joining in!

Temp is crucial and we are in summer so try going in the evening. I found two gophers here in Ventura a little over a week ago out and about around 6pm...one 3ft and one 4ft. 4 ft was sunning himself in the open amongst some fresh gopher holes and 3 footer was on the move through some low weeds. Good luck.

Thanks for the advice. I wonder about cloudy, cool sunny days. Do the animals come out if they can't sun themselves?

Its still possible to find kings and other snakes in those little canyons. In areas where there are no rocks to turn, you can find snakes by laying cover objects to look under during the Spring, winter, and fall. If you want to find them in the open crawling around, you're going to have to do a lot of searching and even then you will find very little. Flipping boards is the way to go.
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I haven't started turning rocks over, because I have no idea how many I'd have to turn to find a snake. I like the idea of laying a covering of some sort myself, but do you really mean Winter and not Summer? I though snakes were all underground during winter.

One big question I have, and I have not found even a hint of an answer on the internet, is how many snakes per acre are living at any one time. In, say, remote laguna mountain chaparall, are there more than 1 kingsnake per acre? Less than 1? How many gopher snakes, long nose, racers, ring necks, patch nose snakes? I really have no idea. The closest thing I've found is an online article on deer mice, which claims about 10 mice per acre during the peak of summer. I don't know how to translate that into snakes.

I would appreciate even wild guesses (WAGs in engineering talk) from people. Thanks in advance for everybody's help.